You Don't Scare Me

[thehermit2]

Left 4 Dead, Dead Air construction site barricade, playing online with 3 strangers on expert level. We light the barricade, then one of our team decides to rush through the flames, and as soon as he does he triggers a Tank. The tank kills him then comes after the rest of us; it catches fire but still manages to kill everyone but me because I run back to the safe room. I wait there for the rest of my team to respawn, then make a run for their closet, and along the way I hear a smoker and a hunter gunning for me. I don't know if I would call the feeling that I got trying to reach that closet fear; it's more like dread. But it is my favorite type of moment in the game; at least it is when I succeed.

Later, playing the Death Toll campaign, on the dock as the ship is coming in, a hunter on fire jumps right at me from the shore but falls short, landing in the water right next to the dock. I swear I heard it make a death whimper, and like a fool I run to the edge of the dock to see. Suddenly it pounces out of the water, still on fire, like the killer coming back to life in a schlock horror movie, and pins me. That is probably the most startled I've been in a game.

 

[ldbmikey86]

In terms of unnerving, not-wanting-to-move-another-inch-frozen-in-my-tracks horror, these 3 games win in my opinion.

Condemned: Criminal Origins (Goddamn mannequins, along with a few other noteworthy scenes that would be hard to describe without spoiling)

Silent Hill 3 (Slurpers and the wonderful sounds they make; They don't know where you are yet, but your radio and their noisy mouths let you know they're around...somewhere.)

Doom3 (Bathrooms...what is it with bathrooms? This and the Silent Hills are notorious for making me hesitate to go into bathrooms in ANY videogame now.)

 

[Samurai Goomba]

I don't really play many horror games. But I guess Silent Hill 2 is the best/scariest I've seen. Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth is one that I really, really want to play. I mean, it looks completely frustrating, but the story is amazing and it's got some neat sanity effects. I should also play Eternal Darkness.

Oh, now I know! Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is a "survival RPG." It's really effective at building a sense of mounting dread as you fight through atmospheric underground areas and face increasingly-horrific enemies. I know most people don't think BoF and "scary" go together, but I felt genuine fear when I faced some creepy little buggers later in the game. The save system doesn't do anything to relieve the player's stress, either.

Oh... And Iron Maidens. RE4 isn't scary, eh? Shotguns make everything to easy, eh? Well the game heard you, and now it's gonna produce an enemy that takes forever to shotgun to death, and leaps around like a salmon if you shoot its legs off. Tell me that didn't freak you out the first time you saw it. And since Maidens are slow, you'll see them coming. They're not a "cheap" scare-they are genuinely horrifying.

But Chainsaw Jerk has never been scary for me. On the other hand, the dogs are.

 

[Soren91]

Condemned: Criminal Origins (Goddamn mannequins, along with a few other noteworthy scenes that would be hard to describe without spoiling)

I know how you feel that freaked me out the first time I played the game. It was probably because I didn't actually notice it at first.

The first thing that came to my mind was The Cradle from Thief 3. I never expected what waited for me in that place because it was such a huge shift from the rest of the game's atmosphere.

 

[KDR_11k]

I still think immersion is a needless buzzword. I was scared in Project Zero. Not because I somehow felt deeply immersed but because the game had uncertainty with gameplay repercussions. It didn't just give you a show that would fit a horror movie but within the actual game rules has no meaning, the enemies disappeared and showed up elsewhere, making you frantically search for them again, getting hit cost a LOT of health and healing items were extremely limited. The actual game mechanics were scary and it didn't matter how "immersed" you were because those ghosts weren't just a show, they were dangerous. Too bad PZ4 was botched so badly that Nintendo refused to localize it until the huge list of problems gets fixed and Tecmo refused to fix them...

 

[Tears of Blood]

Scarriest? Had to be in Resident Evil 4. I didn't pick up the thermal scope for the semi-auto sniper rifle, so I had to try to escape Regenerators without it for the rest of the game. When I got done the night I played that part, I was actually light-headed and shaking.

There are three that I can remember, and they aren't even horror games.

1.) The original Max Payne. The nightmare sequences were so scary when I first played the game, I had to stop playing for, like, a week.

2.) The first Halo game where you first encounter the Flood. I flipped shit.

3.) The beginning of Bioshock when you get off of the first bathysphere.

Games that are supposed to be scary, such as Dead Space, have made me uneasy or made me jump, but I really haven't had a genuine "omg I'm scurred. D:" moment since the three I mentioned. It's kind of sad, to be honest, since I love to get scared when playing games. Maybe that is the problem, though. Maybe it is because I am seeking that thrill that I don't get it. It was so much scarrier when I wasn't expecting any horror elements in the game I was playing. I have played horror games such as Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dead Space, Condemned, and F.E.A.R., and none of them can produce that same, pure, terror.

I think more games need to take the Bioshock approach. (Whether it was intentional on their part or not.) Don't tell your crowd they're getting a horror game. Let 'em think it's gonna' be some good old-fashioned fun, and then lay a few crazy splicers on 'em. It makes sense if you think about it. A situation is a lot scarrier when you don't expect it to be, you leave yourself vulnerable to the scare.

 

[Necrofudge]

Haven't really played that many horror games so the closest thing would be maybe one of the moments in Bioshock where a splicer would jump at you pretending it was a corpse. And even that wasn't much.

 

[Dramatic Flare]

I shall be honest.

When I was a wee twerp of 12 years old, I had only had about two hours of first person shooter under my belt. So when I started playing halo, I really sucked. I was playing normal, and dying a lot.
However, this is due to my general sucking at the game. I was really into, however, my young brain enthusiastically enjoying what little immersion halo had.
So when the level where you released the flood came, I panicked. I panicked even further when I had managed to escape and was then teleported to the Library which was filled them.
That level scared me just short of losing my pants. It was intense, random firing death sprees that left me frequently with little or no ammo, and constantly twitching around.
Playing it again when I was sixteen, I realized how much of a fool I had been back then.

 

[CMon]

I've experienced a few unsettling gaming moments...

For one, The Mansion in Vampire: The Masquerade. A virgin flying around showing you the way? An enraged ghost with an axe, scaring the fuck out of you and throwing stuff at you? That's real poltergeist shit right there.

And then there's the first FEAR game. It's sad that the horror has focussed more and more on flinching as the various expansion packs and the sequel came out, because some of FEAR 1's mindfuckery really got under my skin and made me panic, even though I was well aware that Alma probably wouldn't kill me this time either.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Scariest game moment...cat jumping out of locker in Silent Hill one. <.< i damn near had a heart attack.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Great Article

My scariest gaming moment

It was nightfall in the world of Tamreil, I had no magica to speak of. Escaping a cave and fleeing to town. All of the sudden... The fight music turns on, I get hit. Again. Again. I have no torches nor enough magica to cast starlight. I remember that I haven't saved since my last level up. I run for my life, but to no avail.

The night I was killed by a mudcrab

 

[coldfrog]

The one time I was most scared in a game? Oh, this needs a spoiler because no matter how old the game is, I can't rightfully out and tell people this if there's even a fraction of a chance that they'll play the game.

Spoiler: System Shock 2

You've found what you need, you've survived through so many rooms and clambered your way to Dr. Polito's room. Finally, you get your reward. And the reward is... A body. Your omnipresent overseer is dead in her room and you're standing there confused and bewildered, when the walls fall away to reveal your artificial overlord, running the show under the guise of a dead crew member, who henceforth becomes far less friendly and much more demanding. That moment gave me the downright chills and is probably one of the few moments I will remember forever.

After reading several more of the responses, I have to agree that half-life creeped me out as well. So many moments of trepidation where you knew you HAVE to do something... but you just don't want to. Even at the beginning of the game, just push that sample into the stream. Just push it in, it's OK. All readings are normal. Yup, go ahead. Nothing unfortunate and ridiculous will happen.

Tink.
Tink.
Tink.

 

[UtopiaV1]

Alma from F.E.A.R 1 creeps me out, i mean she never actually hurts you, but when you catch a glimpse of her running around out the corner of your eye, then turn to find her gone, or when she just APPEARS when you climb down a ladder and you're powerless to do anything except jump off the ladder to your death!!!

Yea, little girls in red dresses with a murderous streak fucking creep. me. out!!!

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I never play horror games because I can't stand being scared but I experienced quite a few scary moments in gaming.
The best one would be

Spoiler

the mirror reflection from Fahrenheit.

Startled the fuck out of me. It's a pretty tense game, actually.

 

[Shadow495501]

Some may criticize, but F.E.A.R. genuinely scared me. Extraction point especially, when I had to go through the hospital and wound up in that Insane Asylum. I peeked in one of the doors to see who was inside, after a moment of getting a good look at the guy, a face popped up on the other side of the window and slammed the viewing window shut on me. I got jumpy and fired a round from my grenade launcher when I saw the face pop up, point blank at the door. Thankfully I didnt die.

 

[Danish_4116]

I'm going to say F.E.A.R as well. The way that they built up the tension, not just pop up scares really got to me. Scarriest moment of the game was when I was running down a corridor, then the roof starts bleeding, when I reached the door on the other side, it disappeared, then I turned around to come face to face (literally) with one of those ghoul/demon/scary floaty things. I jumped out of my seat since I was waiting for something bad to happen but didn't expect to see the ghoul/demon/scary floaty thing an inch from my face. Throughout the entire course of this game, many bricks were shat. I swear to god I was petrified of little girls in red dresses for a month.

 

[rougeknife]

No mention of the Cradle in Thief3 or the Ocean-Side Mansion on Vampire:Bloodlines? Those scenes are the scariest in the history of gaming, and the best thing about them is that for the first half of the former and the entirety of the latter;

Spoiler

there is nothing that remotely poses a threat to you!

Yet you are completely and utterly terrified the whole way through and a level that could take minuets running takes hours sneaking. Quite literally nothing to fear except fear itself.

The point is driven home later in bloodlines in the abandoned hospital, creaping through, seeing the sings of struggle from the TV crew being attacked by the unknown horror, only to find it?s a friendly NPC who addresses you with the line:
?True Terror is not the sight of death; it is the fear of death.?

 

[Cekil1]

"My beloved Silent Hill series really shows off this problem from time to time, as do the early Resident Evil games. The game is always disturbing and dripping with atmosphere that awakens a profound sense of dread in the player."

Shamus, I could kiss you just for these few sentences. I too remember being in that dark mansion with a crushing sense of dread whenever I turned a corner or opened a door. I wish Resident Evil was still terrifying and not just action scene after action scene. Beside my sadness at the loss of RE, I think you make some very valid points in this article.

My scariest moments have to be the entire first playthroughs of Resident Evil and Silent Hill on the PlayStation. Anyway, thank you for sharing and keep gaming.

 

[Obrien Xp]

The Oven man and the guy who jumps out at you just before that in re4. Also, those dogs in the garden.

 

[BenzSmoke]

Thank you Mr.Young. I've long felt the same way about "survival horror" games too.

-SPOILERS BELOW-

My scariest game moment was in FEAR 2 during the first level in the room with the pool. I just opened the door to the room and saw Alma run inbetweem some potted plants. I rounded the potted plant to see where she'd gone, but she'd already vanished. So I turned around to see the little girl in red standing not even a yard away from me. Needless to say I fired several SMG rounds at her.

That moment still freaks me out even when I know it's coming.

Many moments in Bioshock also freak me out. But the scariest for me was when I found the secret room in the Fort Frolic level. Once you open that room several of the statues found around the area come to life and attack you. The worst part is that these statues are basically mute spider splicers, so you don't hear them coming...

I couldn't return to Fort Frolic for weeks after that.